


black holes and revelations

by rire



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Family Bonding, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Mother-Son Relationship, Pining Keith (Voltron), canon compliant up till the end of season 6, keith tells his mama about shiro :)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 07:18:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15625578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rire/pseuds/rire
Summary: “I’m not letting you name the space wolf,” says Keith adamantly, crossing his arms.Krolia doesn’t know too much about parenting, but she supposes that nineteen in human years may be the time they enter their rebellious phase. The thought, strangely enough, pleases her. “Why not?” she asks.“You almost named me Yorak.”Krolia reconnects with her son and learns a thing or two about devotion.





	black holes and revelations

**Author's Note:**

> why am i writing fic when a) season 7 is out in less than 24 hours and b) i have a final exam tomorrow that i haven't started studying for... i don't know but i just love keith and krolia so much

“I’m not letting you name the space wolf,” says Keith adamantly, crossing his arms. 

Krolia doesn’t know too much about parenting, but she supposes that nineteen in human years may be the time they enter their rebellious phase. The thought, strangely enough, pleases her. “Why not?” she asks.

Keith’s jaw juts out and his eyebrows scrunch together. The expression reminds Krolia of his father. “You almost named me Yorak,” he says.

“Yorak is a beautiful name,” Krolia counters, taking an unbothered bite from her skewer. The food in the quantum abyss is limited, but this bright purple vegetable is one of the few that she likes the taste of.

“They would’ve shoved me into a locker, at school,” says Keith. “As if they needed any more reasons to hate me.”

Krolia swallows the sadness before it has a chance to rise. “A locker?”

Keith purses his lips thoughtfully. “It’s like… a storage compartment for books? If you wanted to pick on someone smaller than you, you could shove them inside.”

“I see.” Krolia muses on that. “You look like you would have fought back and won. Perhaps naming you Yorak would have been good training to prepare you for the Blade of Marmora.”

Keith half-snorts, half-laughs. The space wolf looks up at the sound, and prances over. She pleasantly nuzzles her head into the crook of Keith’s neck in a teasing display of affection before revealing her true motive by taking a large bite out of Keith’s skewer.

_ “Hey,”  _ says Keith, with no real heat behind it. She runs off, and he gets up to chase her down. The two of them wrestle playfully for a bit before Keith drags her back, and starts to roast another skewer for himself over the haphazardly constructed fire. When the flames go away, he adds some logs to the pile.

“Who taught you to make a fire?” Krolia asks. She knew, now, that Keith’s father had passed when he was a child. The thought of it is like a double-edged blade lodged deep in her heart, the twin sorrows of losing Keith’s father, and knowing Keith had grown up alone. 

“Oh, Shiro did,” says Keith casually. “We used to sneak out a lot on the Garrison hoverbikes. Blaze dirt trails in the desert sky. And when it got dark we’d go to the edge of the nearest forest, start a fire for warmth, and just… talk about life. Our dreams. The future.” He smiles secretively to himself, as if lost in the memory once again. Krolia has not known Keith for many moons, but were he a complete stranger, she still would not fail to recognize the starlight twinkling in his eyes.

“This Shiro,” says Krolia knowingly. “You talk about him quite often.”

“I guess so.” Keith shrugs. “He’s… he’s like a brother to me.”

“I see,” Krolia says, and wordlessly catalogs the way his ears turn red. “Tell me more.”

The scarlet on his cheeks deepens. “Well,” he says, and clears his throat. “He, you know, scouted me, brought me to the Garrison. Stuck his neck out for me a lot.”

“Yes,” says Krolia. “You’ve told me.”

“Uh… what else?” Keith fidgets. “He’s a good leader. Always puts other people first. And once he sets his mind to something or someone, he’ll never give up.”

“Sounds like someone I know,” says Krolia, with a smile.

Keith tilts his head in confusion. “Who?”

Krolia shakes her head to hide her laugh. “Never mind.” She pauses, and tilts her head up to look at the sky. It’s perpetually the shade of sunset. The warm pinks and oranges are soothing, and remind her of the desert on Earth. “Tell me something no one else knows about him.”

“Why does this feel like truth or dare during a middle school sleepover?” says Keith.

“Keith,” Krolia says truthfully, “I don’t understand a word you just said.”

“Wow,” says Keith. “For once I’m not the one who’s out of tune with popular culture. But okay.” He sighs and tilts his head back too, resting it comfortably on the large rock they’re both leaning on. “I saw him cry, once.”

He pauses, lost in thought, and Krolia waits for him to continue.

“I only found this out later, but it was after his biggest fight with his boyfriend at the time,” says Keith. “I’d just gone to find him for our regular flying session, and I heard sobbing and I looked through the crack in the door and he was— broken. I’d never seen him like that. I didn’t know what to do. I kind of just froze, and walked away, and came back a few minutes later. By then, it was like it never happened. He didn’t have a single hair out of place. We snuck the hoverbikes out, and had a race, and he let me win. And then we sat by the fire, looking up at the stars, and he told me how proud he was of me.”

Keith’s voice cracks, and he takes a deep breath, looking out at the distance. “Most people saw him as the Garrison’s golden boy, or the Champion, or the Black Paladin. But he was just a guy. An orphan who took so much shit from the world, but still believed it was good, and became the person who would be there for kids like him. That’s why I want to be there for him.”

They sit in the profound silence for a long moment. 

“Keith,” says Krolia finally. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Yeah, well,” says Keith. “There isn’t much else to say, I think.”

The space wolf, who was cuddled up next to them, nudges Krolia’s hand to remind Krolia of her existence. Krolia gives her head a few strokes to appease her. The wolf, satisfied, runs off again to chase some butterflies. Naturally, with her teleporting ability, she wins each time.

Krolia speaks up again. “How about Fala?”

Keith blinks. “What?”

“For the space wolf,” says Krolia. “A companion needs a name.”

“I don’t think we should name her,” says Keith, looking quite uncomfortable. “We don’t… we don’t know what’ll happen. If we’ll get separated once we get out of the quantum abyss. You shouldn’t name something you don’t want to get attached to.” As if on instinct, he picks up his knife absentmindedly and begins to toy with it. Krolia imagines him sleeping with it by his pillow, not knowing where it came from, not knowing where _he_ came from, and feels a resounding pain in her chest. She may try for a lifetime to be who she could not have been when he most needed her, and she may never succeed. But she will die trying. After all, devotion runs in her Galra blood. Their Galra blood.

She turns to Keith. “Did you fight it when you met Shiro?”

Keith looks at her in confusion. “Fight what?”

“Yourself.”

Keith, finally, catches on. He looks at the knife and puts it down. “I guess I still am,” he says. 

“It’s funny,” says Krolia. “You would search and destroy the universe to bring him back, but you don’t believe that he would do the same for you.”

Keith flushes. “It’s not that,” he says. “I know he cares about me. But my feelings for him and his feelings for me are… different.”

“When I first met your father, I gave myself many reasons why it wouldn’t work. I was on a mission. We were of different species. But in the end, two people who are meant for each other will come together no matter what.” She puts a hand on his shoulder. “You should tell him how you feel. You may be pleasantly surprised.”

“You don’t know that,” says Keith quietly. “You don’t know him.”

“But I’m coming to know you,” says Krolia. “And there isn’t a man out there who wouldn’t be honoured to be with you.”

Keith’s face, then, turns a deeper red than she has ever seen it.  _ “Mom,”  _ he says, giving her arm a shove. “Stop it.”

Krolia fights a smile and loses, badly. It spreads all the way across her face. “You called me Mom,” she says.

Keith scratches the back of his neck. “I guess I did,” he says, sounding as surprised as she felt. He looks her in the eye and smiles. “Um… thanks, Mom. For everything you said. I’ll think about it. I really will.”

The space wolf pounces on them then, knocking them both breathless as she licks all over their faces.  _ I want to be part of this heartwarming family moment, too,  _ she says with her big puppy eyes. Keith gives her a kiss on the forehead.

“Cosmo,” says Keith. He looks at Krolia. “I think she looks like a Cosmo. What do you think?”

Krolia nods, and smiles. “I like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/redbeantofu) and [tumblr](http://redbeantofu.tumblr.com) @redbeantofu!


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